Could you have a blacklist of mac addresses? Or is spoofing MAC addresses too much of an issue? Free wifi has been springing up all over the place, so I assume the problem of users getting up to no good has been addressed before?

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My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

Once would assume as the council is involved its CityNet/CafeNet that is providing the nuts and bolts, good move, as you say just hope its not too abused, this type of service is very common in Europe, particularly eastern.

Yes please, bring this to Auckland.... After all, what is a Super City without a super Wi-Fi service...?Off topic, sorry, but I wonder which of our mayoral candidates will sieze this idea for Auckland?

MikeSkyrme: Yes please, bring this to Auckland.... After all, what is a Super City without a super Wi-Fi service...?Off topic, sorry, but I wonder which of our mayoral candidates will sieze this idea for Auckland?

in this evening news they stated that Wellingon planning to have the whole CBD with free wifi before Auckland do it and state it that the main reason for having this wifi is for both locals and visitors turist and rugby world cup people. and will have limits to how big file downloads to stop p2p stuff.

One thing that many people seem to have forgotten today is that the CBD already has signficant coverage from CafeNet and has had virtually continuous coverage from the train station to the Embassy Theatre.

There is no such thing as a "free" service as somebody has to ultimately pay for the service. Why there is a need to replicate infrastructure that is already in place is totally beyond me.

Trademe are providing the service. Wellington city council is providing the power and allowing them to use its council owned utility structures to place repeaters - eg. lamp posts, pump houses.

I can see how it wouldnt be too hard for trademe. If you have most of your bandwidth going out your symmetric main connection - like a web server would, then there is heaps of spare capacity for data coming in which could be delivered via radio to wifi users nearby on their hotspot network?

Ray TaylorTaylor Broadband (rural hawkes bay)www.ruralkiwi.com

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Props to TradeMe. I would also say WCC, but this is nothing but a huge net win for them, they hardly have to do anything, and they didn't even come up with the idea. If they were actually proactive they would have sorted out free or subsidised municipal WiFi years ago (not that most councils have, but still, just saying). Not to mention Mrs Prendergast's failure to get funding for her Wellington FTTH plan, which was one of her big election promises (yes I know that funding was cancelled later anyway, but that's besides the point). I will never forgive her for that, because it's the only reason I voted for her that time, and she never did anything about it (this was before National unveiled their nationwide plan). Sorry, rant over.

I hope this will last indefinitely, or at least until there is a replacement. I wonder what the speeds will be like, and if it's just P2P they're blocking. Will Skype work? Should be interesting.

th3r3turn: going into the city 2morrow, lookin forward to testing this on my laptop!

Screeb: Props to TradeMe. I would also say WCC, but this is nothing but a huge net win for them, they hardly have to do anything, and they didn't even come up with the idea. If they were actually proactive they would have sorted out free or subsidised municipal WiFi years ago (not that most councils have, but still, just saying). Not to mention Mrs Prendergast's failure to get funding for her Wellington FTTH plan, which was one of her big election promises (yes I know that funding was cancelled later anyway, but that's besides the point). I will never forgive her for that, because it's the only reason I voted for her that time, and she never did anything about it (this was before National unveiled their nationwide plan). Sorry, rant over.

I hope this will last indefinitely, or at least until there is a replacement. I wonder what the speeds will be like, and if it's just P2P they're blocking. Will Skype work? Should be interesting.

th3r3turn: going into the city 2morrow, lookin forward to testing this on my laptop!

Well I for one think this is great. And it is different to having cafenet access around wellington. Nice to be able to know that you can get down to the beach have a look at the tides and weather in your ipad, do a spot of fishing, look up epicurious after the catch and stop by the supermarket on the way home for dinner - without worrying about your cafenet balance or how much time is left on your expensive 1 hour pass.

PS. sorry for the double post, but there wasn't anything in the wireless forum, that's the only place I looked :)